


Year of the Boar

by Poinsettia



Series: Seven Years [5]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Alternate Ending, Angst, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2016-09-19
Packaged: 2018-08-15 21:41:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8073688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poinsettia/pseuds/Poinsettia
Summary: Seven Years is a series of vignettes that aims to show the development of Wufei and Treize's relationship during the first seven years following the end of the war, with Treize as the winner. Each vignette is titled according to a year of the Chinese calendar.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: The _Gundam Wing_ anime series is property of H. Yatate, Y. Tomino  & Bandai. No money is being made out if this work.

I've always liked the night. Nights on Earth, that is. They remind me of space, that vast, infinite expanse of not-quite-darkness. And still, nights on Earth are nothing like space. Up there everything is always cold and silent, not like Earth at all. Even this late at night—or is it this early in the morning?—I can feel how the heat glues my shirt to my body, the warm humidity of the air turning my skin as sticky as a post-it note. It’s uncomfortable, but I’ve certainly lived with worse.

How anyone can sleep in such a climate eludes me. Gods know I can’t. The house is rustically fashioned so that the only relief from the heat comes from century-old fans attached to the ceilings. And, in my opinion, they aren’t good for anything except annoying the hell out of you with their rickety noise. I swear they do it on purpose. Although I’m not sure what is more infuriating, them or Treize’s ungodly delight with the climate.

One would think that for a man that grew up in the cold Russian forests, the tropics would be unbearable. They aren’t. And that’s just another set of expectations that Treize has defied. Why should he be predictable, after all? I swear it amuses him to throw people off balance. He must find some sort of morbid pleasure in it. Perhaps that’s the reason why I’m still here, by his side: I’m nothing but his biggest defiance to the world.

Imagine the scandal should word get out of our affair. The leader of the Earth United having a former terrorist as his lover. But am I really Treize’s lover? The truth is I don’t know what I am anymore, just as I don’t know why he spared me that day in the woods. Was it truly because he loves me, as he claimed, that he lied to his men and told them that an unknown assailant had attacked us? Or was there an ulterior reason? 

Because Treize always seems to be full of reasons. Big and small, he has all sorts of reasons. Once I would have said that we had that in common, but not anymore. I have lost more than just my reasons. As years pass by, I find I recognize less and less the man that stares back at me from the mirror. There’s nothing in the willowy Chinese with the long hair tied in a loose ponytail that resembles the small, angry boy who fought so hard for justice. 

Quatre told me recently that it was time to forgive myself. He said so last week when I spoke with him over the videophone during one of our weekly chats. He said, “It’s not a crime to survive, Wufei. Not all survivors can be winners, and to survive is a victory in itself.” I still don’t know how my position can be taken as a victory, though. I’m just the lover—am I?—of Treize Khushrenada. How can that be a victory or a conquest? If anything, the one who has been conquered is me.

Stupid me, who had to go and fall in love with the enemy.

I hear the wooden floor of the veranda creak under the weight of another person. The noise momentarily interrupts the buzz of the nearby insects only for it to re-start again a second later. When a pair of arms embraces me from behind, my first thought is for the expanse of bare skin and the swarm of mosquitoes hunting invisible in the night air. My second thought is for how disturbingly intimate is the feeling of two sweaty bodies pressed close together.

I’m not sure how long we stay like that until I finally find the courage to turn within Treize’s embrace to look up at him. I’m glad that because of our height difference the first thing I see is not his face. My eyes, however, are level with the scar above his heart. I bring up my hand and trace it with the tips of my fingers. 

It’s almost surreal to know that I did this. To know that…

“…I can also hurt you…”

“I know.”

Treize’s voice startles me; I didn’t realize that I said that out loud. Tense, I look up to find him looking back at me.

“Do you want to hurt me, Wufei?” he asks.

Do I want to? 

Not…anymore. No.

“No.”

That’s perhaps the first truth I have told to myself in years: Whatever it is I wish from Treize, it is not his pain.

Some time later, Treize walks me back into the house. He bids me goodnight and leaves me in front of my rooms. As I watch him disappear down the corridor, the thought occurs to me that, tonight, I want him to stay.

“Treize, wait!”

Blue eyes turn to regard me.

Lover or catamite. Scholar or terrorist. Friend or traitor.

I’m all of them. 

I’m none.


End file.
